… think on these things. – Philippians 4:8

Shock headline: Dog bites man

An article in the The Telegraph expresses the incredulity and shock of both Johnathan Peralman, the Telegraph’s correspondent in Sydney and other Australian media at the recent decision of the Anglican Church in Sydney to include the words “Will you honour and submit to him, as the church submits to Christ?” in one of their recommended vows for wives to say to their husbands within marriage ceremonies.

Give thanks to God for Archbishop Peter Jensen and for the many evangelicals within the Anglican Church in Sydney. But what’s odd, yet sadly all too common about the article, is the snide, belittling, language and tone towards a teaching of the church that has been around since the Apostle Paul.

The move is described as the “controversial pledge,” there has been “furious public criticism,” against a section of the church that “is notorious for its staunch conservatism.” Then there’s the reference to 50 Shades of Grey, the recent trash lit fad, by which two millennia of Christian use of vocabulary is now apparently to be judged.

Wives, submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife even as Christ is the head of the church, his body, and is himself its Saviour. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, – Ephesians 5:22-25

Paul wrote the book of Ephesians 2,000 years ago, much of western civilisation has been based upon a Judeo-Christian view of marriage for a great deal of that time, and yet when it’s affirmed by bible-believing Christians, it’s reported as though it’s a startling case of man bites dog rather than what it actually is.